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Anatomy for Urology

A product review of a DVD for the urological specialty, produced by the combined efforts of Primal Pictures & the European Association of Urology.

Corresponding Author: Amit Mevcha Bristol Urological Institute, Southmead Hospital, Bristol, UK

A demonstration of how to use the product is available at

http://www.primalpictures.com/demo.aspx?f=urology_2009.swf 

The section of anatomy covers renal anatomy in depth. Anatomy of the male and female pelvis includes sagittal sections, pelvic floor muscles, neurovascular supply of the organs, lumber and sacral nerve plexuses, the organs with muscle layers, and major blood vessels. High resolution 3-dimensional labelled images can be viewed from different angles. Anatomical details are divided under many different headings, which are further subdivided into multiple numbers of frames. One of the good features is to add or remove different layers for better understanding of complex anatomical relationships of the various structures.

Renal calyces 

Furthermore, with a simple click on a structure of interest, further text is displayed including concise useful information and additional links. The search is facilitated by provision of an index and A – Z contents list, so one can select the area of interest directly for images and links without having the trouble of going through many frames. Bookmarks can be placed to return to a specific location with ease.

26 different surgical videos cover real case scenarios, for example incontinence, laparoscopic prostatectomy and nephrectomy. Surgical videos are sub-divided in stages to give better understanding and relevance to each part of the procedures. Each video provides information about useful manoeuvres, appropriate instruments and methods to achieve better surgical outcomes. Watching videos of challenging laparoscopic procedures, for example heminephrectomy in horseshoe kidney, makes operations appear manageable. Facility to print, save and use images for Word and PowerPoint can be extremely useful for presentations, handouts and teaching purposes. 

In practice, use of the programme in out-patient consultations could make explanation of pathological conditions and treatment simpler for the patient. An aspect that I think is not ideal is auto installation of the software into the system, instead of viewing content straight from the disc. On a small number of occasions, I lost sound during a video; transient frame hanging can bring some frustration when working for longer durations of time (but I do acknowledge this could be a problem with my computer rather than the disc). Furthermore, I feel that addition of histological slides of the urinary system (normal and pathological), and videos of more endoscopic procedures could make this product exceptional. 

This interactive software makes learning complex urological anatomy interesting and easy to understand. I can see it being widely used by students, urology trainees and practitioners- not only for educational purposes but also for patient information and explanation and will prove to be valuable in urological practice.

Prostate view

Urology male urinary system

Ulterus

Date added to bjui.org: 22/02/2010 (publication information)
This content is exclusive to bjui.org website.

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